Frederick Hoffman

Frederick Hoffman entered the Royal Navy in October 1793 as a midshipman in HMS Blonde and served for twenty-one years, chiefly in the West Indies, the Channel and on the West African coast. Commissioned lieutenant in 1799, he fought at Trafalgar in HMS Tonnant, later commanded the sloops Favourite and Apelles, and spent about two years a prisoner in France after the Apelles grounded on the enemy coast in May 1812; the court martial for her loss acquitted him and returned his sword. He wrote his journals at Dover in 1838 and accepted the rank of retired captain in September 1840, but found no publisher in his lifetime. The book was printed in 1901 by John Murray, edited by A. Beckford Bevan and H. B. Wolryche-Whitmore.